A Very Richard Nixon Xmas

Mark Giselson, former City Pages blogger and all-around angry Norwegian, reminds us that 34 years ago today saw the beginning of the special contribution to Christmas history made by local boy turned felonious president, Richard M. Nixon (now Yorba Linda's leading roadside attraction). Up until 1972, Christmas and war had generally been linked by phrases like "Christmas Truce"-- it took Nixon to make "Christmas bombing" part of the Xmas vocabulary. Between December 18 and December 30, the U.S. dropped 20,237 tons of bombs and other ordinance on North Vietnam to force North Vietnam to accept an agreement to end the war-- the terms of that agreement being ones that North Vietnam itself had proposed two months earlier.

If that makes the Christmas bombing seem like a pointlessly murderous undertaking made all the more appalling by its timing-- well, that's just the magic of Richard Nixon.